 Have you ever heard the expression Big Hat, No Cattle? When I think of the 8A Business Development Program, I think of Big Hat, No Cattle, meaning what? You've got all hat, but no substance, right? And so a lot of people out there bragging, boasting, I've got 8A certification, right? But they don't even know how to do it. They don't know what to do, where to go, how to navigate. They don't even know how this program even works. Someone told them to get a, so they lucked up, hired a consultant, paid someone some money, maybe they even filled out the application themselves. They got 8A certification and now they're stuck. Well, if you are Big Hat, No Cattle, stuck with 8A certification and wanna learn how to navigate the program, stay tuned for this video coming up right now. We're gonna take you through a walkthrough behind the scenes of the 8A program and how it works. All right, thank you for joining me over to the big screen. Today we're discussing the 8A Business Development Program, the infamous 8A, quote unquote, license to steal program. So many people out there have asked me questions about it, it's probably the most, number one most asked thing in government contract is the 8A program. Should I get 8A? Should I become 8A? When to start, when not to start? How does it work? I've had 8A and I haven't been successful. This is the notorious, infamous 8A video. So again, I've been working and wanting to get this out for probably months, if not a year at this best. So now I've made this video, we're gonna talk today about the 8A program and how it works. First and foremost, the three components of a successful 8A program is the agency, the SBA and the firm itself. So again, we all have to work together harmoniously in order to facilitate an 8A contract, right? Now, the SBA and the agencies also will interchange that word between agency and procuring entity. So you'll hear me mix and match the two words. But the SBA and the agency itself or the procuring entity has what between them called a partnership agreement. So the partnership agreement, the point of it is to help expedite contract actions between the agency, the SBA and the 8A firm. So in order to actually make this whole 8A process work, there had to be some rules put in place by the government, right? Saying how the rules work, how it governs the program and allow for those expedient transactions that we'd come to know that happen along the 8A pathway. And just to give you an example of where the partnership agreements are at, any and every one of us can go on the SBA's website and take a look here and you'll see the actual partnership agreements. There's 50 of them in place right now with most of the agencies that you guys learn to know and trust and like. Probably the ones that don't have partnership agreements are the ones that are outside of the continental United States but the Department of Defense, Interior, and again, most of the agencies that we all do business with have established partnership agreements in place with the SBA on how to govern the actual 8A program. And if they do not happen to have a partnership agreement in place, don't worry because they have to, as long as they follow chapters, CFR 124.508 and the FAR 1908, they're good to go. This is an example of what that partnership agreement looks like. Here's the one between the SBA and the Agency for International Development. And again, it just states the Small Business Act. It says that they developed this 8A business program and how it works. And again, the rules governing the program, the do's and don'ts, and what the agencies should be doing in order to enact an actual 8A contract. So again, how this works, the gist for everyone is the SBA has an agreement with the entities and that agreement governs the rules and then you as the 8A firm has been certified by the, right? So remember, in order to get 8A, you've got to be approved by the SBA. So technically you're under the umbrella of the SBA. So again, all certified 8A firms fall under the auspice of the SBA. So now what happens is the actual contract doesn't take place between the entity and the 8A firm. It takes place between the entity and the SBA and then you being one of their firms, then the SBA would then in turn give you the contract and we're gonna explain how all of this works towards the end of the video, all right? But just so you know the dynamics, the contract doesn't go directly from the 8A firm to the entity, it goes the SBA is an intermediary between the two of you, right? So between the entity and the 8A, the SBA is the actual intermediary. So Eric, why does this whole 8A thing, how did it come about? I don't really know the history of the 8A program itself but what I do know about the 8A program and the benefits of it is a couple things. One is it's a quicker way to procure projects to get them done and then at the same time help add some sort of economic impact to small businesses and upstart firms. So the program serves twofold, right? So it allows for an expedited manner in which agencies can do business, get their products accomplished, but at the same time satisfy a bigger requirement which is to help involve small business firms, help put money back into the communities, help with a little start businesses who we know are the backbone of America. So as you see here on the chart, the actual SBA, the agency and the 8A firm together, they'll put together what's called sole source or negotiated projects for the 8A entity and then that allows them to bypass the traditional bid procedures that you see on the right hand side of the screen which is at first they gotta do market research. So whenever they're gonna do a traditional bid, they're gonna do market research. That market research involves trying to determine whether or not a particular solicitation should be set aside for small businesses, right? So they do initial market research which that could take 30, 45 days, then they'll put out a pre-solicitation, advertising a solicitation as coming down the pipeline and then they'll actually issue the formal solicitation and during the formal solicitation, they'll allow a window of time for bidding that, questions, site visits, things of that nature and then after the bids are accepted, then they have time to do what's called a bid review and then there's a lot of time for a protest, right? So against someone that has a concern or question regarding how the bid went, that allows time for a protest and depending upon how complicated the actual solicitation is, the request for proposal, the work, the scope, it may require presentations depending upon how many people participate, there may be a set of negotiations and then finally the selection process and so as you can see here, the amount of time that it takes to do all of this and from what I've heard, the estimates could be up to nine months and timeframe whereas on the 8A side, if they do a sole source and negotiated type of solicitation acquisition, then you're talking about six months or less. So again, the amount of time that's saved and also another key factor is you see those dots in the middle, I intentionally drew them because if you are the person on the government side, right, and you're responsible for giving out contracts, you don't know the quality of the people that you're receiving bids from. So you're gonna have some good ones, which I have in green, you're gonna have a couple bad ones in red and then you have some, you know, some ones in average and yellow. So you gotta go through and assess all that and make the correct determination and that's not an easy task for anyone to do. So again, the traditional bid procedures first is the acquisition selection when using 8A firms. Now, how does this all work Eric? How do we make this happen? So again, let's go back to the initial slide. Well, first we have the agency and typically an agency will set out what the requirements are. And then we have the 8A firm, right? Which your 8A as an 8A firm, you have your existing capabilities. So now the procurement center representative is the person that was tasked on behalf of SBA to carry out their policies and their procedures. So the PCR person is the point guy or girl that helps carry out the policies and procedures to ensure that the 8A firms' capabilities match up with an agency's requirements and then that's how we put together a particular contract action. So there's three ways in which they do that. We're gonna go over the three ways today and how they select actions. If anyone has any questions or want to double check behind what we're talking about today, you can go to subpart 19.803, select the acquisition for the 8A program. I just made it visual and I'm going over it today in a way that I think makes it a little bit easier to understand for the majority of people out there because I myself, I like to see little pictures and diagrams and slides. So rather than just reading, just blank text. So hopefully we can get some, add some clarity to the process for you guys out there. So the first way in which we handle the acquisitions is what's called a search letter. You'll see here it says the SBA advises contracting activity of an 8A participant's capabilities through what's called a search letter. A search letter, basically what it is, is a search letter comes from the SBA to a procuring entity slash agency, right? And what this says is there's a request letter sent from the procurement officer of the SBA for and on behalf of an 8A participant to reserve a requirement that matches that participant's qualifications. So we're going to say to them, okay, we have this 8A firm over here and so we have this person's qualifications. This is his list of qualifications, his or her list of qualifications. And so we want, we know that your particular agency buys these products and services. So we just want to find out if there's an opportunity available for this particular 8A firm. And it's really as simple as that. Now, when do you actually request a search letter? And then how do you request a search letter? So one of the things that I'm telling all of the companies that I represent that are part of my program and my courses and things like that, my clients is first you go out and you want to try to find out an opportunity as early as possible in the pipeline, right? So the earlier you find out about an opportunity, the better it is, the higher your chances of successfully having it set aside to become an 8A particular award, an 8A set aside, an 8A procurement. So again, as early as possible in the process that you're aware of something, the better it is to initiate sending out a search letter. So the earliest possible that we know that's on paper, right, is a forecast list. So again, most agencies put out a forecast list. You have the ability to go through and look at what's coming up in the next two, three, four, five years. And at that point, you can request for the SBA to send out a search letter on your behalf. We'll talk about that coming up. Sources sites are great places also to identify future opportunities that are coming on the pipeline. It's also the same token where the government is using to do market research anyway. So there are a lot of times they're trying to determine whether or not this should be set aside for 8A or hub zone or service disabled veteran own. And then a pre-solicitation is still not too late because it has not turned into a formal solicitation. There still is an opportunity to have that set aside as 8A. It's less likely to happen, but it's not impossible. So again, these are three stages finding out about upcoming opportunities where it's appropriate to have a request, a search letter be sent out. How do we do that? So what we do is we, the entity, right? So we, me, I'm the 8A firm, right? And so I look at what agency has this particular opportunity. What's the information I have about the project coming up and what capabilities or experiences do I have that align with those particular requirements? I send that to my SBA rep and I say, hi, you know, is it possible that you can send a search letter on my behalf to for this particular opportunity? The SBA rep then in turn writes up a search letter, sends it along with your capabilities over to that agency on your behalf. And that's it, right? So a lot of times the stuff that's happening is happening in the background. So you never actually really see it, but you have to first initiate a search letter in order for it to happen. They're not gonna do it for you without you requesting it. So again, try and get in as early in the process as possible to, so that way it gives the particular agency the procurement entity time to analyze what their requirements are, how their goals are aligned and see where they're not, this is a possible potential opportunity to set aside in the 8A business program, all right? This is an example of what a search letter looks like. This is an old one that I have because again, like I said, a lot of times the search letters, you don't really, you don't receive them and your SBA guy doesn't necessarily send them to you. So it's something that you request, they send it to the entity and you never really see it. You can request them to send it to you, but oftentimes again, this is something that's done between the SBA and the agency and you're not really privy to that information. But I was able to find an old one just to give you guys a rundown and idea of what this looks like. So you can see a real life example. This one was sent to Mrs. Padaro, says US Small Business Administration is requesting your assistance and the identification of potential procurement opportunities for award on the provisions of the section 8A, Small Business Act 637A, Opportunities Sought for, and again, unless they're gonna put your company name and address, it has come to our attention that your agency has a pending procurement opportunity for this particular regional contracts. We'd like to introduce you to the named owner, the name, title of the company. They're a service disabled veteran firm, they're an 8A firm, HubZone, they've had successful government experience. And then it says on the third paragraph, the SBA has signed an agreement with the Department of Defense for 8A Opportunities. This contract opportunities request is made pursuant to the S Section 8A Small Business Act, identifying the requirements, again, listing the approved business plan of the company, city and state, and within the 8A Business Development Program. So you can see the letters basically referencing laws and acts and charters and agreements that they have between the two entities, the government entities, and just putting forth the fact that, okay, we've got this rules between us, this is a company that we want you to consider for an opportunity. No guarantees, but it's letting them, putting you and the peripheral vision of that particular agency, right? Number two way in which to source acquisitions is what's called a requirements letter. So the SBA identifies a specific requirement for one or more 8A participants and sends over a requirements letter to the agency's Office of Small Business Dispatch Utilization. And so what happens is in the requirement letter, what they do is this is more of, instead of like one to one, this is one to many. So they say, okay, you guys have all these bundled contracts, we want a piece to go to the 8A Business Development Program. We send them a requirement letter saying we want you to give a piece of these recurring contracts into the 8A program so that we can have companies in our portfolio, 8A firms, participate in those particular activities. This is great specifically when it's like recurring contracts because once you're able to get a recurring contract vehicle into the 8A program, it's really difficult to get it out of the program. There's specific laws that govern how to remove something that is in the 8A program outside of that. So if you have, let's say for example, I had one of my students who's in my pilot program and he sent over his information to the DLA, the DLA asked him because they actually provide, you know, products to the government. DLA says, okay, we have a list of products and their NSN numbers that are already set aside for the 8A program. However, if you have additional products that you sell that NSN numbers, that your particular company who's an 8A certified provides, we will be willing to consider putting those additional NSN numbers on the 8A list. And so this is a good way of showing you that it's not necessarily set aside for one particular 8A firm but what it is is they're gonna put those requirements inside of the pool of 8A contractors allowing it. So now it's only 8A firms within that group that can actually participate in those opportunities. Great news because again, if you have 8A, this is music to your ears. You want to try and get as many potential opportunities put into the 8A pool so that you're not competing with against, you know, every Tom Dick and Harry, right? So if there is for example, anything coming out of pipeline that may benefit the group as a whole, this is where a requirements letter would come into play. Number three, market research. So the agencies may also on their own review other proposed acquisitions for the purposes of identifying requirements, which may be offered to the SBA. Whereas the agencies either independently or through self-marketing efforts of the 8A participant identify requirement for the program. So the way that I see this is there's two ways. And right now it's commonly happening because, you know, you'll see agencies that already have 8A set aside. So they've already said, okay, look, we're already doing these XYZ 8A set aside. So the agency, that's one way. The other thing is the agency itself is saying, okay, we've got some upcoming stuff. We've got some stuff coming out of pipeline. And like we showed you before, when they do the market research, they sit down the source of sought notice, how many 8A firms out here can do this project, right? So now they're doing market research saying, okay, how many 8A firms can do the project? And if we get a favorable response with the appropriate capabilities, then we can set aside 8A. So that's another way. The other way is that you, the 8A firm, and I've done this in my own personal experience, I was on a project and we were working. And then someone in one of the commander's office asked us, could I take a look at their building to see if it had mold in it? And so we took some samples, sent it back to a lab, tested it, and we determined that there was mold in that particular building. They asked us to do a write-up for them, what it would take to redo the mold, to eliminate it and redo the walls and things like that. So it was more of an unsolicited proposal. We submitted that to them. And because it was mold and it was time-sensitive, urgent, critical, and we were the ones had already done the analysis, they went ahead and converted that unsolicited proposal into an 8A particular action. So that was an example of how we took, just by being on site, being present, being around, we were in it also being the ones who were actually doing the construction on site, they were able to convert that into an 8A opportunity for us. So again, if you are looking down the pipeline or seeing forecast list of, you're talking about the requirements or meeting with the engineers, and you have a way in which you can help them meet or exceed those requirements, you have some ideas about how to get that done, those proposed solutions can be converted into opportunities to put into the 8A program. There's an example here of where the actual government themselves were seeking out qualified 8A firms to meet their missions to do business with. So it said that in this case, this was a DLA, and they were saying, hey, listen, we are looking for qualified 8A firms to meet our missions, work to do business with, please see the attached information to see if any of your firms meet the criteria that we can do business with. And so they sent this out, the procurement entity sent it to the SBA to send out to the firms in that particular region. So that thought that was great market research. Now, let's assume that we know the three ways in which they do that. So what's the next step? Well, after the entity themselves, right, they've done their evaluations, I've done analysis and they said, okay, whether through the requirements letter, whether through the search letter or through the market research, they said, okay, we wanna work with your company, right? So what's the next step that happened? So the next step is what they do is call an offering letter. So the procurement entity slash agency will send to the SBA what's called an offering letter. And then what it says is, okay, the contract office shall notify the SBA to the extent of its plans to place an ADA contract with the SBA for specific quantities, items of work. I'm then it's called an offering letter. Here's an example of an offering letter. Again, the government agency is sending this to the SBA. So it says to SBA this requirement is being processed under our partnership agreement. You keep hearing those words, partnership agreement in place, right? Those things are critical to know. So remember, I always tell everyone, in order to be an expert or consider, I'd say an expert, in order to be considered proficient, knowledgeable in this place, you must use the lingo. So again, if you don't use the lingo and you're not talking about these types of things, then it's very easy for someone to look past or look beyond you as though you don't have any idea or understanding of how any of this stuff comes together. But if you start using the same vocabulary as the government entities, they're gonna have to respect you and they're gonna have to start acting on the best interests of your behalf. So again, learn this to understand the lingo. But it says here the requirements being processed under a partnership agreement between the SBA and DOD under which procedural changes, the ADA process has been made, the Air Force Reserve Contracting Officer was solicited a proposal, whole discussion to make contact work directed to the ADA firm pursuant to the procedures. They're offering this requirement to the ADA Contracting Program as a ADA sole source set aside. And then it tells you what the scope of work is and therefore, so that's an offering letter. So now, they made the offering letter and so the SBA upon receipt of the contracting officer's letter, the SBA must determine whether or not they wanna accept the requirement and to the ADA program. They have, and then they have only 10 days to do so. Now, I know what you're thinking and I thought the same thing and say, well, why would they not accept something to the program? I don't have any good basis for agreeing why they would not, unless, okay, so let me retract that statement. There's a couple of reasons why they may not accept the letter. From what I understand from talking with people within the SBA, let's say your company exceeded the size standard, right? So now your company has grown to this monstrous company and contracting officer's still trying to give you projects. That may be a reason why they won't accept you. Number two, let's say that your company failed to do their annual requirement. So you forget failed to update your taxes or failed to do your annual report and so now, even though you're within the ADA program, all of your information is not updated. That might be a reason why they failed to accept the letter on your behalf. And then the other reason would be, maybe your company, they don't have the necessary experience or expertise in order to do that. So maybe you failed at some other projects that the government SBA is aware of that this particular agency may not be aware of. So maybe you've had poor performance at other similar type jobs of size and scale and so the SBA, to protect their inches, will not accept that on your behalf. So but assuming that none of those three things hold true, the SBA is more than likely going to send out what's called an acceptance letter on your behalf, accepting this particular solicitation project be entered into the ADA business program for you. All right? Now, this is what an acceptance letter looks like so it says, okay, this letter is a service as acceptance of the offer submitted by your agency on September 9th in accordance with the ADA Small Business Act and federal acquisition regulation, the Excavated Partnership Agreement between US Small Business and the Department of Air Force. Hereby, accept your offer for the requirement and it lists the requirement on behalf it lists the company's name. It says the dollar value, the NAX code, the size standard, we've conducted an analysis of the requirement with the provisions and we don't see any adverse impact. The results analysis is real that no small business performed the requirement for at least 24 months and it tells you some other rules, things like that, that they must comply with, all right? And so, congratulations, you've won your contract. But wait, Eric, what if my ADA rep doesn't know what to do? Well, the reason why we have, I'm putting out these videos, the reason why there's books on this stuff, there's reason why there's rules on how this stuff, in my opinion, if your ADA rep doesn't know what to do or you've never heard of this stuff before, it would behoove you to take it upon yourself to try and learn it, right? So go back, re-watch the video and try and learn how to do this stuff. Here's a couple of things that I can suggest that may help you out in your endeavors of trying to learn and grasp this information for your own benefit, right? So Procurement Center Routes, remember we talked about that earlier on the video, that's in subpart 19.4, Corporations Small Business Administration. It discusses their roles and responsibilities. It also states that if you have a procurement center rep that's not doing his or her job, but they can be replaced, that you can go above that person's head. It's only two pages and one paragraph long. So really, I think that anyone who has ADA should absolutely read this and try and digest these two pages and one paragraph. The second suggestion I have is, what governs the ADA program and how it works is subpart 19.8, contracting with the Small Business Administration, the ADA program. It's 11 pages, but really the first four is all the meat and potatoes and it talks about general and how this thing is administered and also about the selection and acquisition that we just went over in today's video. And then a couple of recommendations before I let you go today, become friends with the SBA staff. I just finished doing a podcast interview with one of the recent 2016 and 2017 NASA award winners, also 2016 SBA award winner. And let me tell you, the SBA was her best friend. The SBA for all of its faults, criticism and comments, they are really good people. They're just really busy, they're understaffed and probably underpaid more than likely. So again, but if you show interest and you participate and you're out there doing things, let them know, send your SBA rep an email, tell them what you're doing, let them know updates. If you went out and met with an agency, let them know who you met with, who you spoke with, give them kind of a heads up on what's going on, show interest and they will show interest in you. Another recommendation, make connections with a few agencies. I know we want to go out there and we want to do business with everybody. We want to do all services, but stick with just a few agencies, get to know them, be where they're at, go where they go, participate in their events, volunteer if you've got to. But again, make connections with a few agencies, become friends with your SBA staff and then stay interested. It's very easy to become discouraged. I know the feeling, again, when we had A&A, we didn't have anyone to show us the ropes, we didn't have anyone to help us, but I do remember one time when I was at the airport and the diversity's rep from this large major contractor, he told us, he said, listen, what happens is, we'll bring people in, they'll do the whole dog and pony show, right? They'll take you around, show you all these money, all these contracts and then you won't, nothing will happen and you won't hear from anyone. And then a lot of us, what we'll do is we'll say, well, this thing doesn't work and then we'll give up. And it's those persons who stay interested, who stay coming back, who stay inquisitive and ask, okay, listen, I came here last time and nothing happened. I came here again, nothing happened. You told me to follow these steps, you told me to do these activities. I did those things, I increased my bonding, I increased my credit line, I increased, I build my team. When are you guys gonna give me a shot? It's those people who stay interested and are persistent, they're gonna win and the long term. And so with that said, I wanna say to you guys, happy A-daying. I hope this video helped. Some people out there, I hope that I was able to explain the process a little bit, add some clarity to it. I know it's probably confusing if you've never seen it before, so maybe they'll go back and watch it a couple of times. Hopefully, in the future I can add maybe some more examples, some more slides. We can talk about this and have some further discussions about the A-daying. But at the very least, you've got a huge macro low perspective on the A-daying program and how it works so that you can now take that back to your office, to your team and start implementing some of these steps that we talked about. Okay, listen. Hey, as always, thanks for watching. Hey guys, thanks for watching that video on A-daying. Listen, I know the A-daying program. I've been part of the A-daying program for the last 12 years and it's not a simple program to use, but it's very valuable. It can be instrumental and people's success growing from zero to millions of dollars in revenue. So again, it's a fabulous program. You just have to learn how to use it and how to work it. And unfortunately, the government doesn't have funding to teach us how to take advantage of all the benefits of the program. But hopefully today with this video that will help some people further their journey and we're gonna have some upcoming videos about A-daying coming down on Pipeline. As always, if there's anything that you wanna hear about you wanna see, let me know, send comments below. And with that said, I'm gonna go back on and we're gonna tell you big hat, no cow. I'll see you next time.